


Smile When You Say Goodbye

by socks_and_sandals



Category: One Direction (Band), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Genre: Gen, Holocaust, Kid Fic, M/M, Other, World War II, maybe a fix-it? haven't decided yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socks_and_sandals/pseuds/socks_and_sandals
Summary: The boy in the striped pajamas au. Very much a work in progress. Please let me know if you want more!





	Smile When You Say Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about two years ago but decided to come back to it.

“Shoom! Shoom!”

Harry runs down the street, giggling and blowing through his teeth along with his friends, trying his best to imitate the sound that an airplane makes. Zach and Matt are right behind him, arms outstretched as they soar past Harry. He frowns and moves his little legs faster to catch up with them. 

Soon they reach Harry’s house down the road. Harry slows down as his friends continue to run, glancing backwards at Harry to shout at him goodbye. “Goodbye!” shouts Harry back, albeit a little unhappily at the sight of his friends go, and opens the heavy gate to the house. 

When he walks in, he finds two of the servants carrying a table, the big one they only use in big parties, down the stairs. He looks up and finds his mother looking down at him with shining eyes. 

“What’s going on?” Harry asks, because he didn’t know a party was coming up. His parents should have told him, he's a big boy now.

“Your father has gotten a promotion!” she squeals happily.

“A promotion is when you get a better job,” explains Gemma snottily, who has suddenly appeared behind Mum. 

“I _know_ what a promotion is,” says Harry crossly. (He didn’t.)

“So we’re celebrating tonight,” finishes Mum. 

Harry starts unhooking his arms from his backpack and pauses. “But he’ll still be a soldier, right?” he asks quickly. He quite likes soldiers, and he thinks he wants to be one just like his father one day.

“Of course he will,” says Mum reassuringly, coming down the stairs.

“But a _better_ one,” says Gemma again, as if Harry doesn’t know. Gemma thinks she knows everything, she’s only twelve. When Harry was four, she was eight, and that wasn’t very impressive. Harry’s eight now, and he’ll be twelve in four years too, so he doesn’t think she has anything to brag about.

Harry’s just made it to his room when Maria knocks on his door and tells him Daddy wants him in his office. It’s only two rooms next to his, but when he gets there, Gemma is already in the good chair so Harry takes the other one. 

“I presume your mother has told you, but Daddy has been promoted,” Daddy starts proudly, “so we’re moving to the countryside.”

_The countryside? Out of Berlin?_ At least a dozen questions immediately swarm Harry’s head. _What about his friends? What about his school?_ He thought he had to go to school to become a soldier like Dad. Gemma beats him to the questions. 

“But Papa, what about school?” she asks anxiously.

“You’ll have a private tutor, just for the two of you.”

“What about my friends?” asks Harry this time.

“You’ll make new ones,” replies his mother from the doorway.

“But I don’t want to make new friends,” answers Harry sulkily. “I like Matt, and Zach, and Ian. And I don’t want to leave this house. This house is the best house in the world!” He says this because he’s sure of it. He knows every secret about this house from to his years of exploring, and he’s sure he’s not going to find a better house for exploring. 

“We’ll get a better house, dear,” answers Mum soothingly, “I hear it’s got a garden.”

_A garden?_ Harry perks up a little at this, but he keeps up his sullen expression. 

“Lighten up,” says Daddy. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to keep you entertained.”

 

 

Harry can hear the music softly from his room upstairs as Maria buttons his suit jacket. He wiggles around the uncomfortable clothing, listening intently as the buzz of voices in the house get louder as more people pile in. 

Someone knocks on his door impatiently, with a shout of “Let’s go!” It’s his sister, no doubtedly dressed up in her white lacy dress for fancy occasions. Harry opens his door to find out that he was indeed right. She even got Maria to do her curls, he presumes, as he’s yanked away by the arm from the room and down the stairs. When he and Gemma join the crowd, he immediately spots his grandparents, mostly due to his Grandma’s gray here and there but still brilliant blonde hair. He bounds over to them and jumps into her waiting arms. 

“It’s so good to see you!” she squeals, squeezing Harry tight and smooching a wet kiss on his face. He wrinkles his nose but still beams up at her and Grandpa. His Grandma is the best person in the world, he’s sure of it, even better than Mum and Dad. Said Mum and Dad soon join them, starting a conversation about politics. 

Harry still doesn’t quite know what that word, politics, means, but he knows it’s boring and hard and unimportant and somehow related to the Fury. He wants to wander off because this is boring, but Mum’s hand around his keeps him there. Counting all the different kinds of shoes keeps him occupied until he looks up at the suddenly raised voices to see Grandma looking very cross. He frowns; Grandma should never be cross. 

 

 

Matt, Ian, and Zach and Harry are playing war. It’s not serious enough to pick sides or anything, so they just run around chasing each other and shooting each other down the house. Matt is the one to shoot Harry down. He exaggeratedly stumbles a couple of feet and falls, making gross gurgling noises. His friends giggle at his acting, which makes Harry giggle along. He’s about to get up when Mum suddenly calls out for him.

“Harry! It’s time to go!”

He picks himself up from the floor reluctantly and pouts. 

“I have to go,” he says sadly to his friends.

His friends chase the car, making airplane noises until the car becomes too fast to follow anymore. They stand at the side of the road, waving until Harry can’t see them anymore. He turns around and lays his head on Mum’s lap. “You’ll make new friends, sweetheart,” she promises again, but he isn’t too sure.

 

 

His mother’s voice and Gemma’s finger prods him awake. 

“Look, it’s our new house!” she sounds excited but something doesn't seem right. Harry sits up quickly from her lap and looks where she’s pointing. There’s a house, but.. she can’t be pointing right. Daddy said the house would be better than the old one, but this.. this house is _shabby._ The paint’s peeling here and there and the house is brown and dirty. Harry’s head hangs as he thinks, _I bet there’s nobody around here I can be friends with._

The inside’s a bit nicer than the outside, the wood’s nice and cleaned and it smells a bit like old but it’s okay. He still misses his house, the one back in Berlin. 

There are soldiers everywhere, who look very strict and serious. They kind of scare Harry, even though the prospect of becoming one excites him. He stares at their shiny shoes that click every time they walk.

“Do you want to go choose a room? I’ll have Maria help you unpack,” Mum says, addressing the both of them. 

“I’m gonna get the better room!” shouts Gemma and she runs upstairs. That’s just unfair, she has longer legs.

 

 

The room he picked isn’t the best room in the house. Of course, Gemma has the best room, with a big window and a view of the garden. Harry’s room has a tiny window that Harry can only see through when he jumps or has a chair underneath him. He has a view of the farm, or that’s what it looks like. He thinks it’s quite odd, that Daddy would get a better job and they would move next to a bunch of farms. It’s also quite odd that all the farmers happen to be wearing pajamas. They’re too small to tell exactly but that’s what it looks like a bunch of striped pajamas. Maybe they’re just too lazy to change after they’ve woken up in the morning. Harry envies them, because Mum and Maria make him dress up every day. He wonders if the farm has a boy his age that he can be friends with.

 

 

“What’s this place called again?”

Gemma’s head whips around. “Out-With, you idiot.”

“Mum says you shouldn’t call me an idiot.”

“Well, Mum isn’t here, is she?”

Harry glares at Gemma a bit longer from where he’s standing in the doorway before he asks again. “Why’s it called Out-With? Out-With what?”

“Not Out-With, _Out-With._ There’s no reason, it’s just its name.” Harry hears no difference and he still doesn’t understand but he doesn’t want Gemma to call him an idiot again, so he sits on her bed to ponder before she pushes him out.


End file.
